Copper

[Ed Monton]

African Copper Plc: 2005 Drilling Programme Triples Contained Copper at Mapanipani North

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM--(CCNMatthews - April 3, 2006) - African Copper ("African Copper" or the "Company") (TSX:ACU)(AIM:ACU)(BSE:African Copper) is pleased to release the technical report from its independent consultants A.C.A Howe International Limited ("Howe") which covers the work carried out in 2005/6 including the drilling and resource estimates at Mapanipani North.

- A 38,000 metre resource definition drill programme has tested a two kilometre strike extent at Dukwe. The mineralization extends for at least 4,370 metres along the Dukwe trend.

- Estimates of the contained copper in the northern 600 metres ("Mapanipani North") have increased to approximately 600 million pounds of copper (39.2 million tonnes at 0.71% Cu classified as indicated resources at 0% cut-off). Estimates for the remaining 1,400 metres of drilled strike extent are being prepared.

- Based on a bulk mining scenario the indicated sulphide copper resource at Mapanipani North is estimated to contain about 315 million pounds at a 0.75% Cu cut-off (indicated resources of 14.4 million tonnes at 1.01% Cu) between 150 metres and 550 metres below surface.

- A selective mining scenario examined the possibility of extracting only the higher grade zones within the bulk estimate and resulted in the resource grade increasing to in excess of 2% Cu (indicated resources of 300,000 tonnes at 3.4% Cu and inferred resources of 3,400,000 tonnes at 2.09% Cu at a 1.5% Cu cut off).

- Howe recommends an underground exploration programme be conducted to provide the detailed information necessary to convert the sulphide resources into reserves which could ultimately be included in a mining plan. This programme is expected to cost approximately US$ 32 million over a 2 to 3 year period.

- African Copper plans to commence construction of the underground access in Q3 of this year subject to arranging appropriate financing and awarding excavation contracts.

The Dukwe Deposit in north eastern Botswana is a structurally controlled hydrothermal copper deposit that contains near surface copper deposits of oxide, supergene and transition material with a substantial resource of underlying sulphide mineralization. Throughout 2005 and early 2006 the Company completed an intensive delineation drilling program on the underlying sulphide mineralization. Drilling is expected to be completed shortly with the final resource estimates for the entire 2,000 metres of tested strike extent expected to be completed by 30 June 2006.

The 38,000 metre drill programme at Dukwe, and the resource estimation, were managed and supervised by RSG Global Pty Ltd. ("RSG") an independent geoscience consulting company based in Perth Australia. The resource estimation has been summarized in the independent report prepared by Howe dated March 30, 2006 entitled "Technical Report on the Dukwe Copper Project and the Matsitama Prospecting Licences Botswana, Africa" (the "Technical Report") that can be found on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and the Company's website at www.africancopper.com.

The northern 600 metres of the 2,000 metres extent of known mineralization has been drilled at nominal 60 metre line spacing with 120 metre vertical pierce points. The current resource estimate extends from 170 metres below surface to a depth of about 550 metres and excludes the surface oxide, supergene and transition resource. The broad breccia package which hosts the copper mineralization extends beyond these depths. The mineralization remains open to the north, south and to depth.

The mineralization at the Dukwe deposit is a structurally controlled hydrothermal semi-massive to disseminated copper deposit contained within a quartz-calcite breccia that has experienced at least 4 phases of deformation. The shear zone and breccia are near vertical and are up to 60 metres wide. Mineralization is discontinuous, and seems to be controlled by an early tensional event with copper emplacement into tension gashes that were oblique to the main shear direction. Subsequent deformation appears to have dragged these tension gashes into parallelism such that the contacts of the individual copper-bearing lenses may still be discrete within the shear but are now almost parallel to the shear contacts. Late stage brittle faulting has displaced some of the lenses to the north-east.

The coarse grained, semi-massive nature of the structurally controlled sulphide mineralization results in a "nugget effect" that requires either closer spaced drilling or an underground exploration program to move the sulphide copper into a mineral reserve category.

African Copper is examining two underground extraction scenarios for the sulphide mineralization:

1) selective extraction of the higher grade copper sulphide bearing lenses; and

2) bulk mining of the entire sulphide breccia zone.

Selective Mining - Mapanipani North (Sulphides)

RSG prepared a resource estimate which examined the resources available to a selective mining operation. The mineralized shear-hosted breccia package at Mapanipani North was subdivided into 15 discrete areas and each was estimated and considered individually. Samples were composited into 1m lengths which were then fit to 2.5m by 15m by 15m blocks for estimating purposes. The 15 mineralized zones were confined by geological and structural observations

The geostatistical variations introduced by these small composite lengths and block sizes results in a lower confidence level in the overall continuity of grades within the discrete areas. This confidence level is reflected in the classification of most resources under the selective mining scenario as inferred resources.

The grades and tonnages shown in the table below are totals for all 15 lenses. Each lens was estimated individually and each carries its own tonnage and grade at a cut-off level. Grades shown are averages and tonnages are totals. Total mineralization within each lens is therefore classified as inferred resources. The individual lenses are of various sizes and at a 0.03 % cut-off range from 300,000 tonnes with 0.34% Cu to 9.1 million tonnes at 1.10% Cu. At a 2% cut-off, the lenses show a range from 100,000 tonnes to 1.3 million tonnes and grades range from 2.35% to 4.63% Cu.

The grade/tonnage relationships shown below have not been optimized, nor has any attempt been made to discard lower grade material from the estimate. This optimization work will be completed over the next three months in conjunction with the complete resource calculations for the entire Dukwe Deposit.